Stucco Weep Screed Requirements — Placement and Clearances

Stucco absorbs water and has to be able to let it back out at the bottom of the wall. The weep screed is that exit — a small piece of metal that decides whether the base of your framing stays dry.

Worth knowing

• The most common failure is grade, not workmanship — a correctly installed screed gets buried later by a new patio, a planter bed, or a landscaper adding 3 in. of soil. Once the screed is buried, the wall wicks.
• Stucco carried down past the screed and troweled tight to the foundation seals the exit shut and produces the same rot as burying it.
• Weep screed handles the bottom of the wall; casing beads, control joints, and drip screeds handle openings, plane changes, and horizontal terminations above it.
• Hold 2 in. of clearance where stucco meets a roof surface below, and use a kick-out flashing where a roof edge runs into a stucco wall — that intersection soaks walls faster than anything else on the elevation.
• One-coat and synthetic systems are proprietary: they are approved through evaluation reports with their own details, which can be stricter than the prescriptive IRC rules.

Common questions